Folklorn

By: Angela Mi Young Hur

Narrated by: Catherine Ho

A genre-defying, continents-spanning saga of Korean myth, scientific discovery, and the abiding love that binds even the most broken of families.

Elsa Park is a particle physicist at the top of her game, stationed at a neutrino observatory in the Antarctic, confident she's put enough distance between her ambitions and the family ghosts she's run from all her life. But it isn't long before her childhood imaginary friend—an achingly familiar, spectral woman in the snow—comes to claim her at last.

Years ago, Elsa's now-catatonic mother had warned her that the women of their line were doomed to repeat the narrative lives of their ancestors from Korean myth and legend. But beyond these ghosts, Elsa also faces a more earthly fate: the mental illness and generational trauma that run in her immigrant family, a sickness no less ravenous than the ancestral curse hunting her.

When her mother breaks her decade-long silence and tragedy strikes, Elsa must return to her childhood home in California. There, among family wrestling with their own demons, she unravels the secrets hidden in the handwritten pages of her mother’s dark stories: of women’s desire and fury; of magic suppressed, stolen, or punished; of the hunger for vengeance.

From Sparks Fellow, Tin House alumna, and Harvard graduate Angela Mi Young Hur, Folklorn is a wondrous and necessary exploration of the myths we inherit and those we fashion for ourselves.

©2021 Angela Mi Young Hur (P)2023 Recorded Books

fascinating satisfying magical realism

really interesting story, different from what i usually read and different from what i expected. it feels funny and contemporary and at the same time very deep and timeless and poignant and sad. a lot of sad things happen and it explores a lot of intense themes, but it is also ultimately really uplifting. give it a go!

Not what I was expecting - very cool

I’m not a spirit ghost kind of person, and was expecting more of a fantasy novel for some reason, so I was truly pleasantly surprised at how this novel changed my perspective and showed me different aspects of this.